<?php
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 * Copyright © 2016 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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**/

$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Telephone troubles all around',
	'body' => <<<END
<p>
	Alyssa&apos;s new carrier sent them a message saying that the service setup had been finished, but we found that it really hadn&apos;t.
	The new TracFone device wasn&apos;t able to make or receive calls while the old Verizon device was still able to.
	My mother telephoned the TracFone people, but when they asked for my mother&apos;s Verizon account information to use it to port the telephone number properly, my mother rejected that idea.
	I agreed that this was necessary, as Verizon isn&apos;t going to give up the telephone number to random people that ask for it.
	They instead need to be sure that the paying customer actually wants their telephone number ported away, but my mother wanted them to somehow authorize the port without that information.
	My mother also supposedly gave them that information through the Web last night, but they said that Verizon said that it was incorrect.
	Furthermore, my mother doesn&apos;t even seem to know what their account $a[PIN] is, so my guess is that they did in fact supply invalid information.
	Either my mother is going to have to supply this account information eventually, Alyssa is going to have to stay on my mother&apos;s Verizon plan, or Alyssa is going to switch telephone numbers.
	Porting the telephone number without proper authorization using information from the Verizon account doesn&apos;t sound like an actual possibility.
</p>
<p>
	The other day, Verizon told us that <a href="/en/weblog/2016/08-August/22.xhtml">only an Apple store could unlock their iPhone</a>, so we headed to one on our way home.
	They took over an hour to even start helping us! This is the kind of customer support that Apple customers pay through the nose to get? Wow.
	Just wow.
	Not only that, but the representative that helped us seemed slightly incompetent.
	They weren&apos;t connecting simple dots, and I was the one having to bring up simple possibilities such as that the account email address might have changed (instead of there being a second Apple account).
	Add that to the fact that my mother couldn&apos;t even remember their account password, and it took a while to get us serviced and out of there.
	They managed to wipe the device, and now it should be usable, or at least as usable as before it locked up.
	Strangely, the device couldn&apos;t even function without a $a[SIM] card! If you take the $a[SIM] card out of an Android/Replicant device, you lose cell tower connectivity, but you keep all other functionality.
	However, we couldn&apos;t even get through the iPhone setup without a $a[SIM] card present in the device (the device complained, not the Apple representative), so the Apple representative gave us a gratis, unactivated, Verizon $a[SIM] card.
</p>
<p>
	We were going to go hassle Verizon about the failed telephone number port out, but we needed to get back to Springfield on the double to check into a new storage unit before our reservation was dropped.
	As it turned out, the plan made yesterday wasn&apos;t to look for a storage unit, but rather to claim the unit that my mother was informed about yesterday.
	I&apos;m never kept fully in the loop on these things.
	Cyrus (who came with us) wanted to joke around, and ended up bringing up the fact that my mobile device has an active telephone line now instead of just a data line.
	My mother was steamed! Somehow, despite the fact that I&apos;d already told them that I was adding a voice/$a[SMS] line after my device was stolen, they still didn&apos;t know and blamed me for withholding this information.
	Why does it even matter though? They aren&apos;t going to like my telephone number because it&apos;s going to change, and I always try to get them to contact me via email instead of anything that involves telephone numbers.
	My having telephone service is completely irrelevant to anything, even though I <strong>*did*</strong> tell them about it.
	By the time we arrived home, the post office was already closed, so that errand will have to wait.
	Likewise, we&apos;re leaving early in the morning to move stuff to the storage unit, so I can&apos;t head to  the post office right away.
	My guess is that I won&apos;t make it to the post office at all tomorrow.
</p>
<p>
	Once home where they were able to connect to our father&apos;s Wi-Fi router, Vanessa successfully activated the proprietary pedometer and synchronized it with the proprietary pedometer server.
</p>
<p>
	I borrowed Vanessa&apos;s telephone number <a href="/en/weblog/2016/08-August/21.xhtml">as planned</a>, and set up a new Google account to use when dealing with my mother.
	This should provide a permanent telephone number at which they can reach me without requiring that I actually keep the same telephone number when I switch providers.
	I used Vanessa&apos;s telephone number to get past the $a[SMS] verification, but then tried to use my own temporary telephone number as the number to forward to.
	That didn&apos;t work.
	Google disallowed the setup of a Google Voice telephone number if I used the same telephone number as the destination number that I did last time.
	I had to set Vanessa&apos;s telephone number as the forwarding number, then correct it to point to my telephone number instead.
	Google is such a stupid pain in the neck.
	At least I have the account set up and working now though.
	Hopefully, Google won&apos;t lock this account up as well.
	Last time, the account got locked up soon after I disabled &quot;less secure application&quot; access, but this time, that was disabled by default.
	I had to actively enable it to allow <a href="apt:icedove">Icedove</a> to retrieve mail from the account.
	Strangely, disabling call forwarding doesn&apos;t function as it should.
	Even if I disable all forwarding numbers, Google still stupidly forwards all calls to my telephone number but not Vanessa&apos;s telephone number.
	However, activating &quot;do not disturb&quot; mode seems to prevent call forwarding as I want it to.
	With that active, all calls are sent to voicemail.
	Voicemail messages are transcribed and sent to my email inbox, making this probably about as decent telephone-to-email functionality as currently exists.
	The one thing that would make it better would be not requiring active telephone service and a telephone number to set it up.
</p>
END
);
